The transfer of data is an important aspect of any integrated circuit device. While data may be transferred between integrated circuit devices through a lossy channel, one important aspect of any integrated circuit device is the efficient processing of the received data within an integrated circuit. As the performance requirements for integrated circuits continue to become more demanding, it is important to provide improved circuits and methods of transferring data. More particularly, there is always pressure to increase the speed of an integrated circuit while reducing both the size of the integrated circuit and power consumed by the integrated circuit. The same pressure is applied to the data links between integrated circuits. As the number of logic elements and memory cells in integrated circuits is increased, the density of data links and their power is also increased.
A received serial data stream experiences post-processing in an analog domain before it converted into the digital domain and de-serialized. This post-processing is implemented on multiple cascaded high-speed analog circuits amplifying and equalizing a signal, distorted and attenuated in a lossy channel, to the level necessary for error free sampling into the digital domain. Another usage of high-speed analog circuits is precise clocking needed for accurate sampling of the received data stream. All high speed analog circuits require high bandwidth and low power consumption that make it very attractive to use a peaking network based on a passive inductor. However, broad usage of a passive inductor for increasing bandwidth and reducing power consumption of high speed analog circuits is prevented by large inductor footprints that not only consume integrated circuit “real estate,” but can also block power and signal distribution. A particular implementation of the inductor may also affect the resistance of the inductor and the magnetic coupling of the inductor, for example. Accordingly, it is difficult to implement an inductor of a high speed analog circuit which achieves many of the objectives of the circuit.